


Work In Progress

by ariadne83



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Bisexuality, Coming Out, Community: queer_fest, Divorce, F/M, Family, Gen, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Female Character, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:46:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadne83/pseuds/ariadne83





	Work In Progress

**Title** : Work In Progress  
 **Author** : [](http://ariadne83.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ariadne83**](http://ariadne83.dreamwidth.org/) /  
 **Fandom** : Hawaii Five-0  
 **Pairing/characters** : Danny Williams, Matt Williams, Rachel; Danny/Rachel; mention of Danny/OMC  
 **Rating** : M  
 **Wordcount** : ~7000  
 **Disclaimer** : I don’t write for the show; if I did there would be canon queer characters  
 **Prompt** : Is it easier or harder to come out (as any queer identity) to your parents once your sibling has already come out to them (as the same identity or a different one)?  
 **Summary** : Danny has spent a good long time in a glass closet, but after his marriage ends he starts to want something different.  
 **Warnings** : Brief (non-graphic) reference to 9/11  
 **Author's notes** : I could not have done this without lunabee34 and dancinbutterfly, who are always there to be my audience and push me to write better!

Concrit is welcome, especially if I've missed off a warning.

  
Work in Progress

After Danny and Rachel got married it became a running joke in his family that he was the token straight guy. Never mind that Ruth was fourteen, and still figuring things out; Danny was the only one with “the trappings of heteronormativity” (fucking _Angela_ and her psychobabble; it gave Danny a headache). And yeah, compared to Matt, who went through guys like nobody’s business, and Angie, who came storming out of the closet at sixteen, Danny’s quiet experimentation - more than the proverbial college try, less than bringing a string of boyfriends to family dinners - had gone unnoticed. When he went to gay bars with Matt he was the cool older brother, the ally, Mr. ‘here, have a cookie for not being a homophobic asshole’ Outsider. And OK, fine; he was taken, not looking to hook up anyway, so what did it matter? But half the time Danny went home feeling itchy under the skin, keyed up and worn out at the same time.

It really didn’t help that Matt thought it was hilarious to bring Danny along as his plus-one, whether it was his firm’s holiday party – “This is my brother. No really. I know we look nothing alike, but Mom tells me we have the same father and everything” – or a fundraiser for Lambda Legal.

“Seriously, what is up with you? Have you pissed off the entire gay community of Manhattan that you can’t get a real date? What am I saying? It’s you. I wouldn’t put anything past you, kid.” But then Matthew would give him the puppy eyes of “You know you want to support your baby brother,” and Danny would find himself spending one of his rare nights off drinking cheap champagne and avoiding small talk at all costs.

  
Rachel thought it was sweet, was the thing. She wasn't close like that with her own brother (not since his spectacular over-reaction to the male stripper Matt'd hired for Danny's bachelor party: she'd disinvited Freddy to the wedding after he called Danny a "shirtlifter," especially indignant because she knew it was true that Danny swung both ways and it didn't make a damn bit of difference to her and, "Who bloody well _says_ that anymore?") so she was kind of... invested in the Williams clan. And she laughed along with Matty when he told his Epic Tales of Danny out in NYC society.

She either didn’t notice or didn’t care whenever Danny went along to one of her many, many work dos and a subsection of her crowd overlapped with Matty’s, and Danny spent a good couple hours catching people in his peripheral vision giving him the fish-eye. Which, hello; how was that fair? It wasn't; Danny hadn't done a damn thing wrong. He wasn't cheating on Rachel, he never "forgot" to wear his wedding ring, he didn't lie about who he was; what gave a bunch of strangers the right to judge him by the company he kept? Nothing, that's what.

  
Danny begged off early from those parties, because it was either that or drink until he didn't care anymore what those assholes thought. Rachel would give him a Look, wrap up her schmoozing and call a cab, pressing her nails into the back of Danny's hand to keep him grounded until she got him home and pegged the hell out of him. And that, right there, was why he loved her so much. Danny needed to be hers, and he needed to know that she knew it, and Rachel was pretty damn happy to oblige.

~~~

That first year flew by, just like all the clichés said it would, and they splurged big time on a weekend in Paris for their anniversary, justifying the gaping hole in Rachel’s credit card by scheduling a week with her folks, too.

They were in London when they found out Rachel was pregnant. It took a couple of hours for the shock to wear off, and a half hour more for Rachel to stop crying and decide she wanted the baby more than she wanted her next promotion. Danny could hardly _breathe_ through his relief, because holy shit, they were going to have a baby.

Then the towers fell and everything changed. By the time Danny and Rachel _finally_ got a flight back to the US they both agreed that New York couldn’t be their home anymore. Danny felt like the worst kind of traitor when he submitted his request for transfer but that night Rachel curled tight around him, like she thought he was going to vanish into thin air, and Christ, he'd do anything for her.

  
By Christmas they were settled into their own place, in Newark, and Danny was working the same shitty hours as all the other patrolmen but sometimes he felt eyes on the back of his neck. Watching him like he was a freaking _boot_ , maybe because he was the new hire or maybe because he hadn’t been here in the thick of things when everybody else went through hell. Danny just tried to keep his head down, breathe through the thick cloud of guilt, and get on with the job. But sometimes it felt like coming home to his wife and his baby-girl-to-be was the only thing keeping him sane.

It helped that Rachel was a rockstar at multitasking, even six months pregnant. Adjusting to the suburbs hadn't been easy on her, Danny knew that. Her accent made her stand out a mile, and her wardrobe wasn’t exactly Jersey chic, and her job didn’t leave her a lot of time to make nice with the neighbors. Not to mention, the flexibility of her hours after Grace was born – while The Powers That Be were still debating the structural integrity of the building Rachel she used to work in – meant she did more than her fair share of baby-wrangling. She was too damn tired for bake sales, or hosting barbecues, or whatever.

But she made her mark in her own ways; Rachel could organize a fundraiser and bully sponsors into participating with ruthless efficiency.

~~~

  
Rachel always tried to keep her game-face on when Danny came home with bruises and scrapes, muscle strain, twisted ankles and aching joints, but there was no mistaking how giddy with relief she was when he passed the detective’s exam, thrilled he’d be off the frontlines. Danny almost didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d been assigned to Vice.

  
The days and weeks and months became a blur of too much work and not enough sleep and Gracie becoming her own person right in front of his eyes. Danny only realized they'd been in Newark two and a half years when Ruth asked Rachel to take her out shopping for a prom dress.

The whole family got together for The Big Night, Ma turning it into an embarrassing spectacle just like she had for Angie, Danny, and Matt in turn. Every single stage of getting ready was painstakingly documented: Ruth at the salon, Rachel doing Ruth’s makeup, Ruth strapping on her shoes, everything. And Danny wasn’t surprised when she snuck away and hid, because Ma was still only about halfway through her photo-checklist.

He found her on the back porch, sitting on the bench with her arms crossed tight against the cool spring air. Danny flopped down next to her and slung an arm around her shoulders.

“You know, you’re just postponing the inevitable.”

“God, _why_?”

Danny snorted. “Right of passage? Trial by fire? Just trust me, you want to get back in there and get the worst over with before Casey gets here; Williams family portraits wait for no man.”

“Great.”

“Hey, if you’re out here, and Mom gets to your girlfriend first…”

“Friend.”

“Whatever. It’ll be ugly.”

  
Ruth said nothing for a while, just leaned into Danny’s side and fidgeted with her skirt. Kid could never keep her hands still when she was thinking.

“OK, what? What is it?”

  
"I'm pretty sure I'm straight," Ruth said, dropping her voice to a hoarse whisper like she was divulging a state secret.

Danny wanted to wrap both arms around her and squeeze her like the big goofy kid she obviously still was, but no way was he messing with her ensemble on prom night; he valued his life. "You've just gotta be unique, huh babe?"

Ruth's eyes widened and her smoky grey eyeshadow made her look a little like a startled owl. "I guess," she said reluctantly, staring at him for some...

Oh. Whoops.

"Y'know. Because I'm bi," Danny said quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. "Rachel knows. I told her a long time ago," he added; the last thing he wanted was for his baby sister to think he was a lying, cheating sack of shit.

Ruth smiled, soft and warm, and there was something about her in that moment that Danny couldn’t pinpoint. She looked... lighter. Her shoulders were back, her chin was up, and Danny was socked in the chest by the realization that the tiny little baby he’d held in his arms when he was ten years old had grown up into this amazing, independent _person_. Wasn’t that just something?

“I like Rachel,” Ruth said, and bumped shoulders with him. “She’s way better for you than Brett ever was.”

  
“Brent,” Danny corrected automatically, and Jesus, when was he going to get control over his own mouth? “Wait, wait, wait; hold up. You beaned him in the nuts on purpose, didn’t you?”

“I was _ten_.”

“When Angie was ten she shaved my head. Us Williamses are precocious at ticking people off.”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “I was ten and he talked in front of me like I’m deaf. He was an asshole.”

“True,” Danny conceded, and then shook his head. “I should’ve known. Taught you how to toss a pigskin myself, and your aim is never that bad.”

“Let that be a lesson to you: underestimate me at your peril.” Ruth pecked him on the cheek, leaving sticky lipstick residue, and shoved herself up to her feet. “Let’s get this party started.”

  
~~~

Summer dragged by through a nauseating heat wave that seemed to bring out the crazies. Danny spent way too much time literally chasing down suspects and then icing his poor overworked knee, which royally _sucked_ because it hadn’t given him this much trouble in years, and it made Rachel nervous, and it meant he couldn’t be as active with Grace as he wanted to be.

But those twinges were nothing compared to the pain that set in once the weather broke for autumn. Danny tried to tough it out and just be more vigilant with the exercises the physical therapist was always banging on about, but when the day came that he couldn’t get out of bed… Well, to say that Rachel was pissed would be a pretty massive understatement. She called them both in sick, dropped Grace off with Ma, and strong-armed him into going to the ER. A terrifying amount of money and a specialist’s consult later Danny was referred for surgery, with the result that he spent Christmas in a drugged-out haze, trying not to think about what strings Rachel must’ve pulled to get him through the system that fast.

Then it was six weeks at home, recuperating and trying not to go stir-crazy. Trying not to think about what was going on at the station without him, because he wasn’t allowed anywhere near any case files until he dialed back on the good drugs. And trying to focus enough to take care of Grace, because she’d thrown epic tantrums all week when they tried to get her to go with the sitter and leave her Daddy at home with an “owie.” Danny couldn’t blame her for being freaked – it was the first time Gracie remembered seeing him in the hospital – and he knew caving in would probably bite him in the ass later, but she was his little girl.

It wasn’t easy, and Danny and Rachel had to rely on his family stopping by to help on pretty much a daily basis, but they were making it work. Until the day Danny came out of the bathroom and found Grace standing at the front door talking to some random guy. He hobbled over on his crutches as fast as he could and slammed the door in the guy’s face; Grace was so startled she sat down and cried.

  
Danny was kind of tempted to do the same, because Jesus, _what if_? It’d been on his mind since the day Grace was born, and the fear had only intensified since he transferred to homicide. But this was something else, and Danny had to fix it right the fuck now. If he couldn’t watch over his daughter 24/7 he’d teach her to watch out for herself.

“What exactly does that entail?” Rachel said when Danny called to tell her he’d deadbolted the door.

“Just trust me on this. Please?”

Danny spent the rest of the afternoon running Grace through a crash course on stranger danger, what to do if she was ever separated from the family, and how to ID herself. By the time Rachel got home he felt like they were making pretty good headway.

“Come check this out,” he bragged, letting Rachel in and dragging her into the living room.

“What’s your name, baby?”

“Grace W’yums.”

“Who’s your Mom and Dad?”

“Rachel and Danno.”

Rachel bit back a smile. “Very impressive.”

“Daniel, monkey. Can you say Daniel?”

Grace scrunched up her face and tried again. “Danno.”

“Good enough. The L’s need a little work but other than that you’re a rock star.”

“Can we play Barbies now?”

“Can we…? What do I look like, the Grinch? Of course we can play Barbies.”

Grace shot to her feet and took off for her room, leaving Danny to face the music.

“So?”

Rachel took his hand and squeezed lightly. “It’s very sweet, but you do remember she’s barely three years old.”

Danny shrugged. “I figure if she’s smart enough to remember she’s smart enough to know what to say in the first place.”

“That is fairly unassailable logic. Danno.” Rachel kept her tone light and teasing, but Danny could see the tension in her face and in the set of her shoulders.

It wouldn’t be the last time they disagreed over how much of Danny’s world to expose Grace to, how much they wanted to puncture her illusion of safety. Because that was the thing: it _was_ an illusion. Danny saw every day how cheap life could be, and how easy it was to get knocked sideways by random happenstance. Rachel could bury her head in the sand, and say she didn’t want to hear about this shit, but that didn’t change the way the world worked.

Anyway, Danny wasn’t that bad. OK, so he had Grace’s fingerprints and a lock of her hair. Yeah, he took a picture of her every morning so he’d remember what she was wearing, just in case. But it wasn’t like he had a vial of her blood in the freezer. And teaching Grace how to pick out the weirdo in the crowd was just _smart_ , making her a more difficult target for opportunistic whack jobs.

  
~~~

In hindsight – after a good chunk of therapy – Danny could see that he'd let working homicide take over his life. It wasn't like he’d done it on purpose, just... Coming home and looking at Grace and feeling in his gut how it'd destroy him if anything happened to her, Danny _could not_ let his cases go cold. So he had a stellar clearance rate, and yeah, alright, he had kind of a limited range of conversational gambits. But he honestly wasn't expecting an ulcer to be the final straw in his marriage.

Danny wasn't an idiot. He knew Rachel wasn't happy about him winding up in hospital again, bleeding internally this time. She was pale and tense and snippy, and she didn't let Grace visit with him for long, so alright, Danny knew he was on her shit list. It still hit him broadside when she packed his bags, a week after the docs sent him home, and told him she needed 'space'.

In years to come Danny would glibly say that the move to Jersey was when things started to go downhill – when he took Rachel out of the city, and she realized she was married to a cop.

It made a good soundbite but he knew better.

He knew it when he came home at the end of the day to a hole-in-the-wall hotel, instead of driving the two extra blocks to his house. He knew it when Rachel finally pulled the plug on marriage counseling because there was no more room for compromise. He knew it when he had to pick up the phone if he wanted to talk to his little girl, and every time he had to check in with Rachel first before he could see her. And he knew it when the face he saw over breakfast every morning was his brother's.

  
Matt was an honest-to-god life saver. He showed up every night, without fail, with an overnight bag and a six-pack, and he let Danny talk about anything and nothing while he ironed shirts for the both of them. Danny had no idea how Matt could spend so many nights sleeping upright in a shitty, cheap arm chair without doing serious damage to his back, but miracle of miracles – Matt _was_ a Williams first and foremost – he never said a word in complaint.

The longer it went on, the more the knot in Danny’s chest tightened until he was all but choking on everything he couldn’t say. Until he couldn’t help but snap.

“Tell me something, what the fuck are you doing?”

Matt shut the door of the fridge and straightened up. “Fetching brews?” His face twisted with amusement – he’d always been a fan of his own lame-ass literalist jokes – and Danny swallowed down the urge to punch him in the arm.

“Look, I appreciate all this, I really do; you have no idea. But I didn’t ask you to be here.”

“I know,” Matt said, offhand, and passed Danny another beer.

“So why are you here?”

“What, you think there’s someplace else I’d rather be?”

OK, Danny had to shake his head at that, because there were polite fictions and then there was out-and-out bullshit. “Trust me, _I’d_ rather not be here. If that chair is half as crappy as this bed I’m stunned you didn’t go home a month ago.”

“We can trade if you want.”

“Hah. That’s great; you’re a real comedian.”

“I can keep up the banter all night, big brother, but it’d probably be more productive for you to man up and tell me what this bitch fit is all about.”

Danny set his drink down on the bedside table and sat down heavily, feeling a little sick. Because OK, he knew exactly what his problem was, but that didn’t mean he was ready for a heart-to-heart.

On the other hand, he wasn’t ready to shoot himself in the foot either, and if he didn’t say _something_ it’d keep eating away at him, making him act like an asshole. Matt really would go home, and then what?

 _Fuck._

“Fine. Alright. Just remember, you wanted to know, so no backtalk. And I expect you to keep it zipped until I say otherwise.”

Matt leaned back in his chair, smirking like the cocky asshole he’d spent the last fifteen years trying to craft himself into, and said, “Cross my heart.”

“Cross your heart? What are you, like, eight years old?”

Matt just raised his eyebrows and spread his hands wide, not taking the bait. Damnit.

“So,” Danny started, and then had to pause to take a fortifying sip of beer. “So, I’m bi.”

Matt snorted. “Is that supposed to be news? Come on, Danny; I’ve seen you window shopping.”

“Fuck you very much, Matthew.”

“Seriously, were you expecting some big scene? Because the only thing that bugs me is that you never share phone numbers. If you don’t want ‘em, you toss ‘em in the trash, and sometimes it’s a criminal waste. I’m just saying.”

Danny stared at him, dumbstruck. “What? When have I ever…?”

“Most recently, last week at Pauli’s. The waiter, with the napkin.”

“OK, so instead of gaydar you have, what, X-ray vision? How did you _know_?” The back of Danny’s neck flushed hot with embarrassment and he was tempted to cool it down with his beer bottle, but he needed the alcohol more, if this conversation kept going full steam ahead.

“I saw his face when you ‘accidentally’ dropped the thing on the floor. Smooth, bro.”

“In my defense, he looked like he was still in college. I’m thirty-two; I don’t do twinks.” Danny snapped his mouth shut after that, because they were straying into TMI territory without the crutch of hard liquor.

Matt, the fucker, took one look at his face and cracked up, and Danny let himself have a full minute of hating his brother’s guts before he caved in and joined him.

Things were different after that. Matt started bringing over shitty action movies, and making Danny rank the stars on an arbitrary scale of hotness; Danny started hitting him with pillows when he went too far over the line, and found an apartment that wouldn’t leave him broke at the end of the month. And every so often, on a weekend when neither of them had to get up at the crack of dawn, Danny would crack out the whiskey and wax philosophical about the mess that was the inside of his head, secure in the knowledge that Matt was equally as drunk and wouldn’t remember shit.

Or so Danny thought, until Matt literally hauled him out of bed one April afternoon when Danny was happily sleeping off his hangover.

“Jesus, Matty, what the fuck?”

Matt dumped him on the floor unceremoniously and yanked open the curtains. “We’re done.”

  
“We’re done?” Danny echoed, rubbing his elbow where he’d cracked it against the base of the bed. “Done with what, exactly?”

“With the pity-party. It’s depressing and melodramatic, neither of which I like to associate with my big brother, so come on.”

Matt threw a T-shirt at Danny’s head and walked out again, and Danny was seriously contemplating fratricide until he heard the coffee machine start up. By the time he’d gotten changed and cleaned up and caffeinated, Matt was so antsy he looked like he was practically vibrating in his seat. The second Danny set down his coffee cup, Matt shoved away from the table and grabbed Danny’s arm, steering him towards the door.

“What... Where are we going? I can’t be hungover tomorrow; I have a court date.”

“We’re going to meet up with someone who speaks your language.”

“I don’t want to go cruising either.”

“Would you get your mind out of the gutter for one second? Please? For me?”

“If you tell me where we’re going, yeah, sure.”

“Have a little faith, Danny.”

“I have plenty of faith. I have all the faith I can handle. What I don’t have is blind trust in the guy who hired a male stripper for my bachelor party.”

“Just get in the car. I’ll tell you on the way.”

He didn’t. And Danny was stuck in the passenger seat for ten miles, fuming, because he’d completely forgotten to undo the child lock after the last time he dropped Grace at school.

Then they pulled up outside Lefty’s Sports Academy, and Danny went from pissed to confused in about half a second, because Matt and sports didn’t mix voluntarily. Also, the place was dark, locked up tight, and they had no gear. “Well, this was fun. I’m going home now.”

“No you’re not.”

Danny was just working up to a good rant about how he’d do what he liked with his own damn car when Angela’s little Bug pulled into the parking lot.

“Matthew, what did you tell her?” Danny said, in his very best stone-cold cop voice.

“Nothing. Although I’m officially going on record to say that you’re chickenshit.”

“Fuck off.”

“Come on, it’s Angela. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Oh, nothing,” Danny said tightly, fighting the urge to smack Matt upside the head. “Just, I don’t tell you what it’s like to be gay; don’t sit there and tell me what it’s like to be in my shoes.” The thing was, Angie was Out and Proud and Danny… wasn’t. Didn’t really plan to be anytime soon, if he could help it. And it wasn’t just the not-straight thing; Danny really wasn’t the type to kiss and tell. The idea of everyone knowing his private business and having an opinion about it… Well, he’d had enough of a taste of that, back when Rachel first kicked him out, to last him a lifetime.

All of which, if you looked at it a different way, was a round-about way of saying that Matt was right; he was scared shitless. Not least that Ange would hate him for wanting to hide, for being able to, and for choosing to.

  
“So, tell her or don’t tell her. But you can’t avoid her forever; she’ll track you down and kick your ass.”

Danny sighed. “Yeah, I know.” And when Angela opened the door, yanking him out of his seat and into a bear hug, he didn’t even try to resist.

“Hey, stranger.”

Matt, the asshole, took off in Danny’s car before he could extricate himself, and then there were two.

“Uh, hi. Sorry, I’ve been real busy. Wallowing in self-pity; you know how it goes.”

Angela huffed out a short laugh and slapped him on the back. “Yeah, well, the fun starts now.”

Danny knew better than to ask how she’d finagled the Academy’s keys and alarm code, or how she knew exactly how to set up the automatic pitching machines; what he didn’t know couldn’t go on anyone’s permanent record. And there was probably a Story behind it that likewise, he didn’t want to know; Angela had ex-girlfriends in strategic places, and that was detail enough for Danny.

“I can hear you thinking, little brother.”

“And yet, I said nothing. I’m trying a new Thing: being the change I want to see. Which in this family means actually having boundaries.”

“You let me know how that works out. Batter up!”

They both slipped easily into old familiar habits, ragging on each other’s swing with the same tired insults they’d used back in high school, and slowly but surely Danny felt himself wind down and get into the zone. He only realized it’d been an hour when the machines clicked off and fell silent.

“Are we good, slugger?” Angela called out from her cage.

Danny couldn’t lie; smacking a few baseballs around had definitely helped clear his head. And he knew what he wanted to do, even if he didn’t know where to start. “Yeah, we’re good.”

Apparently the intervention didn’t end there. When they got back to Angela’s – after Danny’s protests about being abducted fell on deaf ears – Lisa and George were nowhere to be seen, and Angela was just vague enough about the whereabouts of her wife and child to make Danny worry. He must’ve been slipping if Matt and Angela had managed to plot all this behind his back without him getting so much as a hint.

But whatever. Danny was a grown up; he could roll with it, and suck up his pride, and take the smothering for the spirit in which it was intended.

“You know, all those years ago, when you first moved to New York?” Angela said, coming out of the kitchen and handing him a drink. “I never thought this is where you’d end up.”

Danny snorted. “Yeah, everyone thought I was pining for Suzanne Clark.”

“Not me. I thought you were fucking your roommate.”

Bingo, there it was; golden opportunity. And there was no way around it without outright lying, which Danny didn’t want to do to her anymore. So. “I was,” he said, as lightly as he could manage, and took a sip of his beer.

There was complete silence for a minute, and then, “OK, seriously? That was your big coming-out speech?” Angie punched him in the arm, hard.

“Hey! Watch it, or I’ll have you arrested for a hate crime.”

“You _dork_. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What can I say? You’re a tough act to follow.”

“Uh huh,” Angela said, putting on her patented I-sense-bullshit face.

“OK, maybe I didn’t want the whole family up in my business. Not that I’ve had much of a choice, this last year.”

“Right, but you have to know we’re on your side.”

Danny covered his face with his hands. “I hate sides. I hate that my life is split down the middle. And I hate my stupid fucking apartment.”

Angela’s arms slid around him, pulling him forward until his head was resting on her shoulder, and Danny shook with the effort not to pull away.

“You’ll live, babe.”

And yeah, OK; that was why he’d been avoiding his big sister. Because she made him feel like a kid, like she could stand between him and the world until things turned right-side up again, and that meant admitting things were irrevocably fucked, shattered and impossible to put back together.

Danny was just glad no-one else was here to see him cry like a baby.

Angela was right, though; he lived. Eventually he was OK enough that Matt went back to his regular routine, and Danny dipped his toe back into the pool of casual dating. Turned out all three of his siblings found Danny’s rusty skills hilarious, but whatever; there’d been no such thing as sexting when he met Rachel back in ’99. Practice makes perfect anyhow.

So Danny fucked around, sometimes even with the same guy or girl for three weeks running, but he was nowhere near bringing anybody home. Which was fine, right? So far, so little drama. But then Pop started making noise about Danny spending too much time alone, and Ma sat him down for the most excruciating conversation he’d ever endured in his life: the “It’s been over a year; get some tail, already” speech she usually made to sixty-year old widows. He’d heard it verbatim over two decades ago, when delivered to Mrs. Ushkowitz (who'd already been a golf widow for three years before her husband had a heart attack).

“Oh Jesus Christ, Ma.” Danny covered his face with his hands, tempted to slide under the table and take the whiskey bottle with him. If he drank fast enough maybe the humiliation wouldn’t transfer to his long-term memory.

What was he thinking? Angie and Matt would never let him live this moment down, ever.

And the worst, the _absolute worst_ thing was that Danny wanted to correct her, tell her (oh God, how was this his life?) that he managed to get laid just fine, no interventions necessary. But he couldn’t. Not without facing down the Mom Stare of “What are you not telling me?” No-one could withstand those Eyes, not even Matty, king of lying-without-actually-lying.

So Danny mumbled assent, made her _swear_ no blind dates, and tried to ignore the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The feeling only got worse when Rachel finally met that special someone and wanted a divorce ASAP.

Matt insisted on paying for the lawyer at that point, and Danny wound up with a chunk of alimony (which he didn’t really want), the title to the house (ditto), and two nights a week with his baby girl, plus alternating weekends (which he was so grateful for he could cry, even if it wasn’t nearly enough).

The whole process was ugly and mercenary and painful, but they managed to keep things relatively civil, all things considered. Until Rachel got back from her honeymoon in Hawaii and told him – _told_ him; what the fuck happened to the concept of co-parenting? – about the new plan of following Stan around the world and taking Grace with her.

Danny fought it tooth and nail, and Rachel yelled at him for his apparent possessive streak – “For God’s sake, Daniel, I’m _married_!” – and Danny told her to get the fuck over herself.

And Grace got quieter and quieter, until one weekend Danny looked up and realized she was eating eggs for breakfast. Grace _hated_ eggs – where the hell was his head at when he cooked them, was what Danny wanted to know – but she was eating them and not saying a damn word.

Danny stared at her, barely able to breathe. Holy fuck, he and Rachel had done this. And Danny needed to make it stop, because fucking _eggs_.

He waited until she was distracted, helping him scrub the dishes (read: playing with the bubbles in the sink) and then asked, "So, you really like Stan, huh?"

Grace stared at him with big, world-weary eyes, and Danny wanted to tear his skin off; it felt like he was being flayed alive anyhow, because _Jesus_ , how much had Grace _heard_?

“It’s OK, monkey. Danno always wants to hear what you have to say.”

“He’s nice.”

“Yeah?”

Grace nodded. “He doesn’t yell.”

Yeah, OK, it was official: Danny was the shittiest father ever, and the clusterfuck that he’d let his “discussions” with Rachel deteriorate into had scarred his baby girl for life.

“Never?” Danny managed to choke out.

“Not even when I broke his nunchuk and we couldn’t play Harry Potter anymore.”

“What do you think about Hawaii?”

“Danno, it’s so pretty!” Grace broke into a smile, and OK, for that alone Danny would suck it up and deal. The sooner he cut short his losing court battle with Rachel, the sooner he could start saving to be where Grace wanted to be.

~~~

After one last Christmas in Jersey, Grace was gone. Danny hadn’t dared to go to the airport – didn’t trust himself not to do something really stupid that could fuck up his visitation rights once he got to Hawaii – so instead he sat out in the front yard, watching the planes fly overhead until the cold left him numb all the way through. It suited him just fine, not feeling anything. His heart was gone; his soul was gone. He’d be nothing but a voice on the phone to his baby girl, for months.

Hell of a start to the New Year.

Pop gave him a cool three days to wallow in misery, and then took him aside after a family dinner to get back on his case about ‘finding happiness.’ “The only way to find the right woman is to keep looking.”

Danny had to bite his tongue to stop himself from suggesting Pop could get a book out of his “sage” advice. “I’ve got it covered.”

“Daniel, your mother and I are worried about you. You don’t talk to us anymore, and it’s not right.”

“What do you want me to say, Pop? My daughter is in another state, thousands of miles away, and you want me to give a damn about _hooking up_. You have no idea…” Danny choked off when his voice cracked.

Pop took a step forward and folded his arms. “You want me to believe that’s all it is? I’m not senile yet.”

“I want you to ask me for once what _I_ want.” There it was, out in the open: a bitterness Danny hadn’t fully realized he was carrying. All this time he’d been hiding in plain sight, apparently obvious enough that Ange and Matt and Ruth had seen it. But not their parents. Why not? What if they were happy enough with the image they’d built up of Danny, and they didn’t really want to know what he had to say? After everything he’d been through, Danny didn’t know if he could take that.

But Pop nodded. “Alright. What do you want?”

Danny swallowed hard, hoping he wouldn’t puke before he said his piece. “I want you to stop with the rah-rah-rah Cupid sh… stuff. Because I don’t know if I’ll end up with a woman; I’m bisexual.”

“You’ve… _dated_ men?”

Danny grimaced; that was as close as he wanted to get to hearing his father say “fucked.” “Yeah.”

“Since when?”

“Since high school. It’s not a phase, it’s not a Rachel thing…”

“I thought we taught you better than that,” Pop cut in.

What the fuck? “Better than what, exactly?”

Pop shook his head and sighed heavily. “All your mother and I want is for you to be who you are. Honesty isn’t so much to ask, Daniel.”

Danny swallowed hard and blinked back stinging tears. He had no fucking clue what to say to that, because he knew for a fact that Matt and Angela didn’t get this particular speech. Other bullshit, sure; Pop’s enlightenment was a work in progress. But not flat-out disbelief and disappointment and goddamn pity. “How am I not being honest?”

“This halfway business isn’t fair.”

“I’m not halfway to anywhere; this is me.”

Pop just pressed his lips together tight and stared him down, skepticism written all over his face.

“OK. I hear you, loud and clear. It’s OK for Matt and Angela because they can’t help it. And I’m supposed to be three times as straight to make up for it, right?”

“Tone, Daniel.”

Danny dropped his head and took a series of long, ragged breaths. Then his looked his father square in the eye. “That’s all you have to say to me?”

“I’m trying to understand.”

Danny heard the unspoken _why you would choose this_ in Pop’s tone of voice - he was genuinely baffled. And Danny was exhausted. “Google is your friend, Pop.”

Danny wasn’t ‘curious’ or ‘flexible’; he liked what he liked. Smart, athletic, and funny topped the list, and on his shallower days a smoking hot body beat out everything else. It was just that he appreciated a nicely-sculpted ass whether it belonged to a man or a woman.

Yeah right, like that was the perfect way to explain this to his father.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just come out and be done with it. If you’re gay, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Oh, for… You think I didn’t love Rachel? You think I regret having Grace? Because that’s bullshit.”

“Daniel!”

“No. No, I will not watch my language, because what you’re saying to me is you think I’m the kind of person who’d lie to my wife and string her along for a decade. And if you believe that we have nothing more to talk about.”

Danny stepped around him and headed for the door without stopping to say goodbye to his Ma. He trudged through the thick snow, yanked open his car door where it had tried to freeze shut, and climbed in, only to find the goddamn engine wouldn’t turn over. _Fuck_.

He was tossing up whether to call Angela or call a cab when the passenger door opened and Ma got in. “So, you’re queer too, huh?” she said before Danny could react.

“Bi.”

Ma nodded. “Can’t say as I’m surprised.”

“I’ve been getting that a lot lately. Seems like everybody knew except Pop.”

“Aww, baby, I didn’t know. It just makes sense, is all.” Ma reached over and patted his knee, like he was one of the skittish old ladies she did physical therapy for, but oddly enough it was reassuring.

“I didn’t tell him just to stir up drama.” Danny smacked a fist against the steering wheel, trying to burn off some energy so he wouldn’t wind up snapping at the wrong person.

“You seeing somebody?”

“No, Ma. That wasn’t the point either.”

“Then tell me, doll. Talk to me.”

“I wanted...” Danny trailed off and scrubbed a hand over his face, tongue-tied now that he was on the spot. “I’m tired,” he said finally. “Carrying this, and not talking about it, letting you think this huge part of me wasn’t there... I couldn’t just pick up and go to Hawaii and leave things like that, alright? It’s hard enough already. What are we supposed to talk about on the phone, when I’m gone, if we can’t... If I can’t... _Damnit_.” Goddamn, it should’ve been easier by now. Danny was a grown man, with a daughter and an ex-wife. Why the hell was he freezing up in front of his _mother_ , of all people?

Ma smiled tightly and slid a hand over his free hand, where it was resting on the stick shift. “I hear you. And your father will too, if you give him some time.”

“Time. You know, it’s funny; a month ago I would’ve said I had too much time on my hands. Now it’s the one thing I’m running short on.”

“Please. You’re not dying. And you’re not even leaving the country.” Ma let go of his hand and tapped his cheek lightly. “Now come inside before you freeze to death.”

She stepped out of the car, walked around it and opened Danny’s door for him. “Chop-chop.”

Danny grumbled, but Ma never took no for an answer, so he found himself dutifully following her back to the house. He felt lighter and weightier at the same time; more substantial. Like whatever happened next would matter more, and however it turned out would mark the start of something big. And maybe he still wasn’t sure if he’d be able to take it. But maybe he didn’t have to be. He’d taken his own time to get this far; maybe it was alright to keep taking one step at a time.


End file.
